KID
by Dylan Wiles
Summary: An old Marvel western heroe gets a new twist
1. KID CHAPTER 1

'Get your country ass off that couch!"

  
  


Madam rolled over on her back, showing me a pink yawn and little regard for anything else. I had named her 'Madam' because she never acted like she'd stand for less.

  
  


"Bad cat!"

I was juggling an arm full of packages and trying to close the door with my foot. As it shut I realized the keys were still in the lock so I let everything fall in the entryway. 

  
  


I had packing to do and I didn't need this extra aggravation right now.

  
  


I went to the couch and scooped 'Her Pussiance' up, held her green eyes level with mine and kissed her cold nose.

  
  


"You don't sleep here! This is leather!"

  
  


"Neeeoow?" It was a question.

  
  


"That's right. And someday I'll make a pair of slippers out of you."

  
  


I let her down and she headed for the food dish, unconcerned.

She'd heard it all before.

  
  


I pulled my old back pack out of the bedroom closet and began to dig through the department store bags of new T shirts and travel size toiletries.

  
  


There would be no place to shop where we were going and little space for luggage so I confined everything to my old school bag. 

  
  


Packing for me is a real simple thing. 

Im a 'jeans and t-shirt' kind of girl and picking out clothes closely resembles how 'Bullet ' shopped for grocerys. Just pick up the first few garments on top of the drawer and throw them in the suitcase. 

Too arcane a reference for you? Rent the movie. Among other great things it was the granddaddy of all 'car chases'.

Worth the money. And Steve McQueen , after all.

Me?

  
  


My name is Tess Navarro. Im twenty-two years old and up until a few weeks ago nothing had ever happened to me. 

See, I'm one of those people you never notice. 

You know the ones. 

The kids in the 'geek' crowd at school. 

The skinny little mousy girls with the' too plain' face and the inability to talk without stuttering. 

The ones who are smart in a world where 'pretty' is the gold standard. 

  
  


Yeah , that's me. 

If being socially inept isn't enough, I was advanced several grades in school. 

They do this, the parents and school officials because its their idea of a reward. 

  
  


It's the kiss of death.

I spent my childhood in a world where everyone else was older, more developed and far more sophisticated than me. 

People called me things like 'baby' and 'little-bit' and most annoying of all. . . 'kid'. 

Why , you say? When most women would be happy to reach twenty three and still be able to 'pass' ?

And I reply; It wasn't what they said, it was how they said it.

  
  


'Get that kid out of here!' or 'what's that kid doing here'?

  
  


There is a difference.

  
  


All this crap afflicted me with a shy disposition and the only place I was really comfortable was with my books, cloistered away , watching the world go by and living my dreams through other peoples lives.

  
  


College was like coming home.

It was all research and long study hours. An easy place to get lost and stay beneath the radar. Many people think of college as social conquests and 'keggers'. I found it to be a sanctuary, with the library as my shrine. 

Don't get me wrong. I've got a great, wry sense of humor and a few good friends of like-mindedness. 

  
  


I just have a few. . . issues.

  
  


But I digress.

  
  


There are a lot of we strangelings out there. 

  
  


Case in point: J. Robert Stone.

  
  


Now Stoney is hard to miss . And his geek factor? Check this out. 

  
  


He's 6'3" with long, unkempt black hair and pop bottle lens glasses. He looks like Tommy Chong. I know about Cheech and Chong because my brother, Sonny, is a big fan. Stoney even sounds like Tommy Chong. Lots of 'mans' and pregnant pauses in his speech. Disjointed thought processes that would persuade the casual observer to believe he was either stoned or simple-minded. 

Nothing could be further from the truth.

He is single-minded and takes a long time between decisions. But once made they are almost always the right ones. And he has made enough uncannily right decisions over the years to have garnered the respect of all the right people at ASL. So much so he's sometimes called Dr Evil. (Put your little finger in the side of your mouth when you say this) Lovingly of course because there is no evil there at all. 

  
  


He loves sports, especially OU college football (Oklahoma University was his alma-mater) and he sucks down diet Coke by the quart. He's totally opposed to war and all things military. He doesn't drink , doesn't date as far as anyone can tell and he never leaves his work station without locking everything down with a gigantic Schlage padlock. 

  
  


Did I mention he's slightly paranoid? 

  
  


He has the ceramic 'gremlin' hanging over the edge of his main CRT, a malignant little gargoyle that ostensibly wards off evil spirits, and the little sign that reads 'Cecilia'. 

That's the name of the vast community of mainframes and computer-related paraphernalia that make up his work-space. A tangle of wires and gadgets and boot-leg parts. A maze only he knows how to navigate . 

It's a fire-hazard, possibly a bio-hazard and the love of Stonys' life. 

And my favorite place to be. 

  
  


ASL is where we work. Sometimes better known as Amer-Tech, it's a scientific facility concerned with research and developement of the lastest technology, industrial and civilian. 

It's main offices are in Washington D.C. and Nasa is it's second cousin. 

  
  


All manner of strange requests come through ASL and some of the best goodies get sent 

down to J. R. (Stoney to his friends) Stone and consequently to me. I'm his research assistant. 

  
  


As you have probably guessed , J. Robert is too far off the scale for the front office so ASL keeps him way out of site like the box of Arm and Hammer in the back of the refrigerator. His work space is in the sub-basement of ASL , a gesture anyone else would have seen as an insult , but Stoney is more than happy in his mushroom hole. 

No one comes down there but me and his second in command, a character I like to call 'the Mole'. 

  
  


There are no words to describe the Mole. But he makes Stoney look like Brad Pitt. 

  
  


Stoney has two outfits and one is never sure how long they've gone between washes. Not that he is unwashed, but he's always rumpled and unencumbered by the dictates of fashion. He is partial to the survival gear look with the camouflage pants and the black T shirts. 

  
  


He's twenty-nine years old and looks forty . 

He does wonderful things with a computer. 

And he is my best friend. 

  
  


Which is why when he came thump-slapping down the halls of ASL in his broken-down huaraches with this beatific grin on his face, I had to ask, 

  
  


"What?" 

  
  


"Man, (he calls everybody 'Man') I've got the deal of the century." 

  
  


And he pulls me aside , hissing in his best 'CIA is listening' voice, 

  
  


"Ya wanna go to Isla Thomasina?" 

  
  


"Why would I want to do that?" 

  
  


"Because I've got two tickets to paradise, and this one..." he pulled a wrinkled (already) airline folder out of his pocket, "belongs to you." 

  
  


"On whose nickle?" 

  
  


"ASL , babe. They want me down there complete with assistant and all the amenities." 

  
  


"Why?" 

  
  


"Because they think they've perfected the formula for time-travel." 

  
  


I sniffed his breath. 

  
  


"J.R. ! Are you high?" 

  
  


High or not you don't turn Stoney down when he throws an offer like that at you. 

Stoney always has the best projects and the most fun with them of anyone in the business. 

And if someone had cooked up a program for time-travel in his garage , well I wanted to see it as much as the next person.

So thats how that afternoon found me packing in haste and cussing my cat, who would need a baby-sitter while I was gone.

I tossed in a pair of Reeboks. I'd wear my desert boots on board. I placed my portable CD player in one of the side zipper pockets and a couple of Jimmy Buffets and one good ole Brother Zevon, whose music will get you through anything. 

At the last minute I threw in a mini-recorder in case there was a call for notes. 

I put my cell phone in the other zip pocket along with two packs of batteries. 

  
  


I had sprung for a leg waxing and a manicure at my mothers' spa that afternoon. 

  
  


Mother is fast losing hope that I'll turn into a 'glamour girl'(her words, not mine) but she never completely stops trying.

"Honey, not for nothing, but if you'd just pull your hair out of your eyes and stand up straight and buy some 'girl' clothes. . . "

  
  


So this time, in the interest of peace, I went the distance and got a 'grown-up' hair style and a few high-lites in the mousey brown, which thrilled my stylist, Rico, into a minor death-spiral. 

He had been beging me for two years to let him do a make-over. 

  
  


"Nothing too fancy-schmancy" I told him, "just blow and go....and don't cut it all off!" 

  
  


Having my hair down in my eyes is , of course , one way I hide from the world. 

  
  


He went to work with enthusiasm while dispensing the latest gossip about his many friends and associates, none of whom I knew. But far be it from me to complain. I loved hearing all the dirt and no one dishes it better than Rico. The bleach and the scissors and the naughty little tales flew and two hours later, viola, he spun my chair around and said dramatically, 

  
  


"My Gawd, it's a girl!" 

  
  


Looking in the mirror I had to agree, it did look a lot like a girl. 

  
  
  
  


I don't know why I let Rico work his magic that day. 

Maybe somewhere out there in the ether-world there are wishes being granted, lives being plotted and guided by unseen hands, intersecting macrocosms crashing together and destinies being decided by the gods. 

Or maybe the whole thing turns on one little girl having a last minute change of heart (and hair-style). 

A decision that puts peculiar forces into motion , causes fundamental tumblers to fall into place and throws the cosmic dice with just six little words; 

  
  


What the hell? We live once. 

  
  
  
  


In the elevator on our way to the top of the Pan-Global building, which sits squarely in the middle of downtown Houston, J.R. and I did a last minute check. I was happy to see he'd put on a regular mans' shirt over his customary black Metallica T shirt and had the forethought to stuff a tie in the pocket. 

Of course the shirt wasn't tucked in and had never seen an iron but for Stoney , that was dressed up. 

  
  


He spent a frantic minute looking for the sun-glasses that were on the top of his head and pulled various and sundry items out of his American Tourister, explaining each one as he presented it. 

  
  


"This is a first-aid kit," he said as he thrust the 7" by 12" vinyl zipper bag into my hand, "You carry it, I'm out of room." 

  
  


It weighed about two pounds. It was well-stocked with all the usual things plus snap-pak needles and syringes. 

  
  


"What do we need with a first-aid kit J.R.?" 

  
  


"We don't , but I've got some dynamite stuff in there I want Dr, Wentworth to see. I made a few modifications to this", he said as he unzipped the bag and held up two vials of green liquid for me to see, "and I think a jungle setting would be the ideal place to test it." 

  
  


"What is that?" 

  
  


"It's a hybrid cousin to cardio-toxin" he replied, "It'll cure what ails you in case of envenomation by anything with a stinger. All you have to do is snap the end off and screw on a needle and 'bingo', instant relief !" 

  
  


"And we need this , why?" 

  
  


"Oh, we don't. But people like these guys on Thomasina have to live in that jungle environment day in and day out. It'll come in handy. The ratio of scorpion stings and snake bite on these little tropical installations is very high." 

"And... " he added , "there could be a paper in it." 

  
  


Ah, the Paper!! 

Every scientists' and every doctors' holy grail. 

Even J.R. wasn't immune to the lure of the fame and validation that came with the publishing of a Paper. I understood his desire to be published at this early juncture of his career. It would keep him in the fore-front of development, in the loop and on the fast track.

"Okay. Gimme." and I stuffed it into my pack. 

  
  


The door to the elevator opened and we stepped out onto the top of the world.

  
  


I guess now would be a good time to mention I'm a little phobic.

Eh. I'm a lot phobic.

I hate heights and I hate public tranportation. . . well the list goes on and on. It's not quite crippling in scope but unreasonable fear happens to be a big factor in my life.

  
  


Stoney knows and he watches me closely at times like this. He doesn't judge and he doesn't push. He keeps it light and he has just the right touch and timing to know when to rag me about it, and when to lay off and let me do things in my own time. 

He's a good friend.

  
  


Part Two

  
  


"Beef or Chicken?" 

  
  


Our pilot was a characture. 

  
  


He had the loud Hawaiian shirt, the Ray-bans and the twenty-four carat smile that said all things were the same to him. He wore khaki shorts, sandals and a Parrot-head ball cap. If he liked Jimmy Buffett, I reasoned, he couldn't be all that bad

His only job, since seeing service in Desert Storm was transporting the likes of Stoney and me to various undisclosed spots in the Carribean and you'd have to say it agreed with him. 

He didn't look too professional, but he knew who we were, he knew where we were going and he didn't ask any questions, save one. 

  
  


"Beef or Chicken?" he repeated as we belted ourselves in to the tiny helicopter. 

I looked at Stoney for confirmation and he looked back at me, puzzled. 

  
  


"What's beef or chicken?" I asked, as he fired up the engine and the rotors began to whirl. 

I didn't think there was a food service on this flight. 

  
  


"Ah", he said over the roar,"newbies!" 

  
  


I gave him the universal shoulder-shrug of 'you got me' and he went on, 

  
  


" 'Chicken' is an easy take-off, straight up and out , no frills no thrills, the blue-hair special. 

'Beef' is a full-tilt, hold-onto-your-ass power take-off, not for the weak of heart!" 

  
  


Interesting choices. 

  
  


Just this once. I thought , Just this once lets have the whole experience and not be paralyzed by fear'. 

Maybe it was the haircut. No? Maybe it was the new surroundings and the possibilty of adventure. Yes . I think that was it. 

  
  


"Beef !" I answered for the both of us . 

As soon as I said it our pilot let out an ear-splitting 'Yeeeehaww'! The 'copter shuddered and roared and we were off at a mind-numbing forty-five degree angle, nose down, the earth hanging all atilt before us, our hearts in our throats and our stomachs still on the ground. 

As we righted I looked over at Stoney. 

Both his hands were over his head and his shirt was flapping in the breeze. 

I patted him on the leg and yelled over the clamor, 

  
  


"Be all that you can be Stoney!" It was the first time in memory I'd ever heard him use the 'f' word. 

  
  


When my stomach came back to me I pounded the pilot on the back and he turned to me with an 'aint this great' grin on his face , pumping his arm up and down yelling , 

  
  


"Beef!" 

  
  


I gave him a green-faced smile and a weak wave , pointing at Stoney who seemed to be looking for an exit. The pilot nodded and gave me a circle-fingered acknowledgement. 

I would have been happier and prouder of my daring had not Stoney been so obviously terrified.

  
  
  
  


Music soothes so I put on my earphones and sat back to enjoy the ride. 

Stoney stared out the window, white-knuckled and silent. I kept one eye on him. 

I was a little shook-up but jazzed. I thought the trip had been just grand so far, but you can't thrust hobbits like Stoney into the real world like that without making a few adjustments. 

  
  


After an hour in the air our pilot turned to tell us we would be stopping in Key West to re-fuel, and that we could get out and stretch our legs if we'd like. I think Stoney found this to be the high-light of the trip . I got the feeling he couldn't wait to get back on the ground. 

  
  


When we landed I went inside the terminal for snacks and cokes. Stoney gingerly stepped out, leaned against an abutment and slid to the ground. When I came back he was still sitting there. I leaned down to his eye level and asked, 

  
  


"Stone! Are you still with me? You look like you just swallowed a bug!" 

  
  


"I think I did" he said miserably. 

  
  


"Can you hang for the rest of the trip?" 

  
  


He nodded in the affirmative and I helped him off the ground and back into the 'copter'. Our pilot gave him a cursory glance and remarked, 

  
  


"Air-sick, huh?" 

  
  


"Maybe just a little ." I said. 

  
  


"No prob. Here, take this." He produced a package of dramamine from his pocket. 

  
  


"Keep it." he said . "Everybody gets sick the first time." 

  
  


I gave Stoney two tabs to swallow with a coke and he settled back into his seat, a look of relief on his face. 

  
  


"I'm sorry about that Stone. . .forgive?" 

  
  


"No man, it was great right up to the end there, where are my sunglasses , man?" 

  
  


I pulled them off the top of his head again and handed them to him. 

The pilot was smiling at us , nodding his head. 

  
  


"Ya'll done good for first-timers. Be cool, Ill take it easy from here on in. Here kid , I'll give you a hand." and he held his paw out to me for an assist. 

I didn't even bother to protest. I adjusted my sunglasses and accepted his help. I guess with my hair pulled back under my turned-backwards cap , earphones around my neck, I must have looked like a kid, so I let it slide. 

After twenty minutes in Key West we took to the air once more and sailed without incident along the chain that ran up the Florida straights , over the multi-colored flats , keeping the islands on our left. Just before the mainland of Florida we banked hard-right into blue water. 

  
  


The scopoline had kicked in. Stoney was asleep beside me and Jimmy Buffett was extolling the vritues of a cheese burger in paradise in my ears. 

An hour later our pilot turned to get my attention, pointing ahead of us, shouting over the engines, 

  
  


" Thomasina!! " 

  
  
  
  


'We're gypsies in the palace 

They've left us here alone 

The order of the sleepless knights 

Will now assume the throne. 

We ain't got no money 

We ain't got no rights 

But we're gypsies in the palace 

And a'runnin' wild tonight.' 

Jimmy Buffett 

  
  


Part Three 

Thomasina. 

It was a small dot. A speck surrounded by deep blue water in the middle of the ocean. The landscape below gave up nothing in the way of identifiable landmarks. 

It was all-over dark green with tropical vegetation. No sign of habitation save a tiny mote that turned out to be a landing pad with a red bulls-eye in the middle of it. 

We circled once and came down dead-center on the pad. 

A nice gentle touch-down that Stoney would have appreciated had he not been asleep.

I shook him and peered into his face. He would be my barometer here and I wanted his reaction. He was a little green around the gills but he was grinning from ear to ear through sleepy eyes. 

  
  


Our pilot handed down our bags. And with a smile and a wave , threw us a peace sign (good Lord) and once again went air-bourne. The wind from the blades blew dirt and foliage and us every which way.

  
  


I glanced up to watch. When I looked back down again , a door to our right had slid open silently and two people were coming our way. 

  
  


Soldiers. 

  
  


On the right was a man. He was over six feet tall. He had brush-cut blond hair, cold blue eyes and the camouflage uniform complete with shiny black combat boots. He was Corp head to toe, all spit and polish. 

As striking as he was , he had nothing on his counterpart. 

  
  


She was an African-American woman with café-au-lait skin, short-cropped black hair and cat-like green eyes .She had the appearance and attitude of a woman who knows where she's going. And she towered over her partner. 

  
  


They both had side-arms. That gave me an uneasy feeling. 

  
  


As they approached I turned to Stoney, 

  
  


"Jesus, J.R, are we under arrest?" 

  
  


"Wow, a lady Marine." 

  
  


I had to look up at both of them but the lady and J.R. were eye-to eye. 

  
  


Ms.Navarro, Doctor Stone? This way please" 

  
  


-2- 

  
  


The place was huge. 

The whole set-up was above ground, and that was fine with me. I guess it goes without saying I was also afraid of closed in places.

I'd had visions of miles of stainless steel walkways and elevators going down into the bowels of the earth. 

the coral bed-rock, we were told, was impossible to dig intoso everything was on the surface. It did have miles of walkways but it was bright and welcoming . 

We turned left past the cafeteria which seated maybe sixty people. The tables were covered with red table-cloths. Very homey. 

The tall lady soldier asked us if we had eaten. 

I suppressed the urge to tell her we'd had 'beef' on the flight over. 

We saw no one as we were shown to our rooms which were spartan but comfortable. 

  
  


"Some one will be with you in a moment" the amazon said, looking Stoney straight in the eye. And then they took their leave. 

I turned to see Stoney watching the woman walk away. 

She didn't look back as she disappeared down the long corridor, finally making a hard right at the end. 

It made me smile to see him watching her all the way to the last minute. I'd never seen him undone before. But Miz. Marine had his full attention. 

  
  


They both had mine.

  
  


"Thats it? What's with the artillery?" I snapped my fingers in front of Stoneys' eyes. "I thought this was a privately funded facility." 

  
  


"She's something , huh?" 

  
  


"Robert, she'd eat you up and spit out the bones" 

  
  


"That'd be fine" he said absently, still focused on where she had disappeared. 

  
  


"The guns, Stoney, what about the guns?" 

  
  


"Uh. . . I dunno." And bringing his attention back to me , he added, "These places are usually heavily guarded. Lots of people want to know whats going on here. 

  
  


"Clearly," I said , " but it still makes me a little nervous." 

  
  


"Yeah , me too. Lets just keep low and see whats going on. No questions , 'kay? Oh, by the way ,you still got that thing I gave you?" 

  
  


I pulled the first aid kit out of my pack, showing him it was still intact. 

  
  


"Good. Hang onto it, alright?" 

  
  


It seemed as if Stoney's customary paranoia was on hold and mine was on red alert. 

  
  


Stoney and I have a long-standing argument we launch into from time to time. 

  
  


His argument is that we , all of us , are being watched on a day to day basis, via telephone conversations, possible wire-taps and of course the dreaded 'cookies ' on our computers. 

He is especially cautious about computer security. 

  
  


He has downloaded so many firewalls and spyware applications on my system I can barely navigate it. 

So as soon as I'm alone I go in and delete the stuff as fast as he puts it up. And the next thing I know its all back up there and I have the whole thing to do over again. 

  
  


It's a game we play. 

  
  


My position , on the other hand, posits that given the state of the world and the daily screw-ups I see all around me , it's more plausible that absolutely nobody is watching. 

Nobody is paying attention to anything and security is in so dismal a state that anybody can get away with anything, completely undetected. I've hacked into too many 'secure systems' to think otherwise.

It's a never-ending argument and neither of us will give an inch one way or the other. We've never come to blows over it but we've certainly gotten to the shouting stage.

It passes the time. 

  
  


Stoney is one of those friends you can yell at and not have to apologize to later. 

In fact we spend a lot of time after one of these blow-ups laughing at each others inability to keep their individual cool. 'Losing it' calls down all manner of derisive snickering and 'friendly fire' name calling. 

  
  


Like I said , he's my best friend. 

  
  


"I need a nap." he said abruptly , coming back to the here and now. 

  
  


"That's the 'scope'. " 

  
  


"Oh yeah." he said, absently looking around. 

  
  


"Go lay down, Stoner . . no that way . . .atta boy." I pushed him gently toward his doorway. 

  
  


Then I shut the door to my own cubicle , flopped down on my tiny single bed and before I knew it, I was the one who was asleep. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. KID CHAPTER 2

What Will They Think of Next?

  
  


I opened the door J. Robert Stone was standing out side with the armed escort.

  
  


"So, we are being received I take it?" I said.

  
  


"One assumes." 

  
  


J.R. looked confident and had an anticipatory air going. I'm always grumpy when I first wake up. I had a butterfly or two down there in the pit of my stomach but mostly I just felt rumpled and cranky.

  
  


"You look a little unhappy." 

  
  


"Well lets take stock. I just flew eight hundred miles in a six by five helicopter to take a nap in an eight by twelve room guarded by people with sidearms.The only thing missing on this island is the veloceraptors and I'm expecting them any minute."

  
  


"I love it when you get in these moods." He was trying not to smile and was making a bad job of it.

  
  


"Stoney , you love it when I lose my dignity , and thats not going to happen. Are we going to see the whacheedingus now?" I said to the room in general.

  
  


The lady with the big gun smiled slightly. I guessed there was a lot more of that under there somewhere but she ws trying to keep a military attitude. I am pretty funny in my pre-coffee state, so I let them all have a laugh at my expense.

So we began another long walk down the antiseptic looking corridors, the military contingent in front, Stoney and I bringing up the rear.

  
  


There are several small signs and gestures people use between them to signify things they don't want the 'suits' in on. He threw me a two-fingers-down peace sign and made a face. We had a little laugh between us as we followed our guides.

  
  


Stoney always knew how to bring me up.

  
  


He was once again focused on the giantess in front of us and I gave him a little push.

  
  


"Say something, fool."

  
  


"Stop it Tess. What would I say?"

  
  


"Ask her what she thinks of some of your little projects. That ought to be right up her alley."

  
  


"My prototypes are not weapons , Tess."

  
  


"She doesn't know that. Use it." I hissed under my breath.

  
  


"I don't know...."

  
  


Hopeless. 

  
  
  
  


It was explained to us the laboratory proper allowed no notes, no pictures, no cell phones, cameras or recording devices of any kind and if we were in possession of any such equipment we should check it at the front entrance.

  
  


Rock concert security.

  
  


The doors at the end of the long brightly lit passageway slid open and we entered what looked like the best equipped , dweeb-driven playhouse of all time.

  
  


It was just huge. 

  
  


The room was round, the size of a football field. 

Twenty feet above was a glassed-in upper deck of rooms surrounding the area. Like sky-boxes in a sports dome. I could see shadowy figures on high through the lightly smoked glass. 

  
  


Below, to the right, were several tiers of computers. Unlikely-looking banks of electronic gizmos and doodads of unknown origin and purpose. 

  
  


Everything was sitting there dark and useless. There was no electronic hum and buzz, no flashing indicators. Not a single terminal was active. 

It was a cyber ghost town and like any ghost town, it was sad and forlorn-looking.

I turned to J.R. to get a reading but he had already begun to roam through the maze of equipment like a cat, sniffing, touching and rubbing up against things as he bent to trace wires and lines and look for the ins and outs of the connections and the how-to of it all. 

  
  


There had been an explosion. Several machines had been ripped open like cardboard, twisted and grotesquely misshapen, covered with dark runnels of smoke-black.

Now I understood why they had called Stoney here. 

He's a born 'fixer'.

  
  


My eye was drawn to the middle of the room. I stepped forward slowly to have a closer look. 

I found an arena that measured a full two hundred feet in diameter, surrounded by a waist-high railing. The bottom was one story deep and appeared to serve no purpose. 

Had I been anywhere else in the world, what I was seeing would have caused me to double over with laughter , or at least roll my eyes.

  
  


It was your basic hole in the ground.

  
  


But looking back around me at the massive amount of equipment , estimating the the time and effort and money it had taken to assemble it , I re-evaluated my first impression. 

  
  


This was no garage experiment. 

  
  


Somebody was playing for real here. The hair on the back of my neck began to do that crawly thing.

  
  


The electricity needed for such a device was monumental and I wondered about the power source. I began to remember the rolling black outs of the late nineties in California and thought maybe Enron had gotten a bad rap. But even so there were a lot of things here that needed huge amounts of electricity to function. The size alone boggled the mind. 

This was likely the heart of the problem and the cause of the blow up.

  
  


It was a very big blow up too.

  
  


Yep. That must have one bitch-kitty of a power surge.

  
  


Working with this project was going to be 'needle in the haystack ' search and recovery.

On the bright side , restoring it was going to be a lot like driving a car. 

  
  


You don't have to know how the combustion engine works to drive. You put the key in the ignition , put it in drive and go . 

On the darker side , this was no Lexus.

  
  


There were no precedents. The whole thing was going to be seat-of-the-pants troubleshooting and hours of tedious untangling , re-routing and reconnecting with little idea of whether or not the end result would bear fruit. My job, as I saw it , would be to follow and log the changes and prepare a blueprint to be used in future as a go-to manual.

  
  


J. R. joined me at the railing.

  
  


"So this is it?"He didn't sound too impressed.

  
  


"Hard to believe ." I quipped , "I didn't see anything about this in the National Inquirer , did you?"

  
  


From behind us came a mans' voice.

"I believe there was an item in the Globe and yes , this is it."

  
  


A man in a white lab coat had materialized there. 

He was about forty-five, had long salt-and-pepper gray hair pulled back in a ponytail, and an amused but somewhat anxious look on his face. He was tall and vaguely handsome. His face ws youthful and his eyes twinkled with wry humor.

  
  


"Doctor Stone, Ms. Navarro , I'm Dr. Jody Wentworth. We spoke on the phone. I believe you are here to fix our toy , yes?"

  
  
  
  


We were introduced around to the crew over dinner later and afterward joined the group outside. 

They met every night on a deck overlooking the jungle to drink frozen rum drinks and unwind. They were a good bunch, assembled from all over the world.

  
  


As the rum poured and the walls of inhibition came down they began to take us into their confidence. 

Later when J.R. and the good Doctor joined us, the talk turned to quantum physics, time-space continua and temporal loops. A few long dissertations on paradoxes and worm holes were held forth.

And overall was a sense of wonder and quasi-disbelief at the nature and scope of the project they were engaged in.

  
  


What impressed me most was the camaraderie. A gang of wide-eyed kids had been given the keys to the ultimate candy store. There was a tight bond here and a singleness of purpose seldom seen in the course of any joint endeavor. 

  
  


And you'd better believe the members of the scientific community can be as ruthless as junk-bond salesmen when it comes to new discoveries. I got no sense of that kind of corporate greed here . Rather a feeling of working toward a common goal. 

It would make the stay here more pleasant.

  
  


The work began the next morning. And as we worked we talked and joked among ourselves. 

The atmosphere was light but there was a sense of urgency under all.I got the feeling everyone was looking back over their shoulders , as if something were gaining on them.

  
  


But if J.R.s' balls-out assault on the project was a little daunting to the others, it was old times for me.

I'd seen him in attack mode before and knew his rhythms. 

The low-grade telepathy between us kicked in and the end of the first days work found us at least able to sort through the system and get a foothold on its workings. 

Long into short, after three days of intense labor and a lot of good luck we had the system up, if not running and the next afternoon would probably bring our work here to an end.

We would be allowed to see the initial firing up, but not an actual transport.

  
  


That night, over drinks and a long running chess game between the two junior engineers the talk turned to what was uppermost in everyone's' mind. 'When and where to'. I wanted to know more about 'how'.

  
  


How was the formula arrived at? Who brought all these people together and what were the long term goals? We got no real answers to this. Not that we were entitled, but I felt a kinship to the project now and being left 'out of the loop' was a little hurtful. Dr. Wentworth , ever the affable host , sensed this and made an effort to console me with heartfelt thanks and assurances that our contribution would not go undocumented and proper credit would be given. 

And he let us in on a few basic pieces of information.

  
  


No one believed travel to the future was possible simply because the 'future' hadn't happened yet. But travel to the past , in small increments, was definitely in their grasp.

  
  


The system had been tested once. 

One of the senior members' had been sent back three days and successfully returned to the present with the' interfacer'. It let the traveler set coordinates upon his arrival and make a safe return without incident. 

  
  


It was nother more than a black box the size of a mans palm. It looked like a channel-changer. 

  
  


There were many jokes and side comments about the shape and configuration of the 'surfer', a most unlikely-looking thingamajig, and the time worn 'don't leave home without it' references were rife, but the upshot was the transporter was essential and the alternative was unthinkable. 

  
  


For without means of retrieval, the traveler would be lost in time with no way to return.

  
  


Holding the small black box in my hand gave me an eerie feeling. It didn't seem a very substantial thing to hang so much responsibility on.

  
  


That night Stony and I had a long talk about the feasibility of the project and we both agreed maybe what we didn't know really wouldn't hurt us.

We also wondered at the moral aspect of such an undertaking.

It was human nature to push ahead into the unknown without a proper safety net.

And all of humanity including the scientific powers-that-be, tend to get so caught up in the excitement and powerfulness of 'can we' sometimes they forget to ask 'should we'.

I hoped that wasn't the case here. 

  
  


As we talked J.R. showed me a few of the side projects he had brought with. 

  
  


I always get a huge kick out of his inventions.

  
  


Over the years I'd been witness to microwave converters, software programs that calculated and kept track of everything from grocery lists to distances between planets , surgical instruments and my personal favorite, a toaster that counted calories. 

That one wound up in my kitchen. The only one of its kind, serving little or no purpose at all. But it looks cool on my counter. 

  
  


Stony would have neither the time or the proper audience here to show off his gadgets, and regretted his loss at a shot at glory. I felt bad for him but everyone here was too caught up in a singleness of purpose. 

And introducing anything new into their 'grand design' would just complicate matters.

  
  


"Whats this ?" I asked as he handed me a small silver tube.

  
  


"Well this" , he paused for effect , "is the next generation of Laser surgery . See? These little solar panels on the side determine the power storage. This", he continued , turning it in my hand , "determines the amount of power used for a given task."

  
  


"Good one J.R. , have you ever tested it?"

  
  


He twisted an imaginary moustache and produced the old 'mad scientist' mwaaahhaha , aimed it at the floorlamp across the room and 'zap' , the lampshade shuddered and caught fire!

I rushed over to beat out the flames with a towel.

  
  


"Ok , that's it. Time for bed Issac Newton."

  
  


We both had our hands over our mouths trying very hard not to laugh out loud fearing we'd draw down unwanted attention. Stoney was pointing at me , making fun of the look on my face. He gathered up his strewn-around belongings hurriedly , a crap-blizzard only he could create and handed me the laser as he slid out the door heading for his own room.

  
  


'That's right." I whipered in the hallway. " Leave me holding the bag."

  
  


"I haven't got room. You put it with your stuff."

  
  


As usual his packing was as haphazard as everything else in his life and I wound up stashing the little doodad and two pairs of his socks in the side pocket of my luggage.

  
  


As a parting shot , he stuck his head out one more time before closing the door all the way.

  
  


"Wonder where G.I. Jane is right now?"

  
  


"I think you missed the boat on that, pal."

  
  
  
  
  
  


The next two days went quickly and by late morning we were finished. 

It was now time to power up and run a check on all the connections. We were all packed. Stoneys' suitcase was at his feet and my backpack was secured over my shoulders. 

Good-byes were said all around. 

I would miss my new friends and was a little sad to be going. A small group of us stood at the railing of the sunken arena as Stoney and I had a last look and waited for the test to begin. The next step was getting the system back up and on line.

  
  


We held our breath as this switches were thrown and the power came up.

  
  


A rumbling came from deep in the earth and from somewhere came the sound of giant turbines grabbing hold, coming to life. The force of their start-up actually shook the room. From the recess below came a shuddering sound and the smell of ozone. The hairs on my arms stood up from the electricity in the air.

A flash of white light split the air and an aura rose from the middle of the flooring underneath us, climbing to a height of fifty feet.

  
  


"Oh shit" someone to my right yelled. It was the last thing you wanted to hear anybody say at a time like that.

The ground beneath my feet shuddered and lurched. The rumbling became jagged and dis-jointed and the entire structure canted at an angle and even I could feel something was wrong.

  
  


It hovered there, rippling and folding in on itself and someone shouted,

  
  


"Shut it down!"

  
  


There was confusion and panic all around as people rushed to their stations in an effort to halt the operation and restore order.

  
  


As we moved back from the railing there was another terrible shock wave. I could see one of the main modules rocking back and forth . The wires on the floor were shooting out huge gouts of smoke and white-hot flames and the monolith before us split with a deafening roar.

  
  


I looked up at J.R. in surprise and grabbed for his arm as he reached to pull me back . 

My foot caught in the hot wiring on the floor and burned my leg. 

And as I pitched forward and toppled over the rail, The blue luminosity engulfed me, sucked me in and I went flying into the abyss.

  
  


Part 2 Into the Breach

  
  


Tumbling, not tumbling. Breathless . A sense of speed with no way to gauge how fast or even if I was moving. 

I was like a deep-sea diver who had become disoriented and couldn't tell up from down, back from front. 

I felt nothing and everything, slow-motion and incredible velocity, panic and eerie calm. It lasted forever but everything happened so fast. Total darkness one minute and bright flashes I had to close my eyes against.

There were no paths, no channels and no worm holes. There was only dark and light and that awful unknowing. 

  
  


I wondered if this was limbo and if I was doomed to spend the rest of my days in this nothingness. My worst fears, after all these years of threatening to, had finally come true.

When I thought I could bear it no longer, the air in front of me split and I felt rather than heard an ear-shattering explosion. 

  
  


I saw earth above me and sky below. And the earth was rushing down on me at breakneck speed.

  
  
  
  
  
  


Part Three

  
  


Johnnys' Story

  
  
  
  


West Texas, 1873

  
  


Running.

It seemed like he'd been running forever. 

Never a moment's peace, never a break in the constant pursuit and fear of capture that had come to define his life.

  
  


This time, his most recent confrontation had left him with a deep wound in his side. The gun of a nervous sheriff in Lahitas had nearly knocked him off his horse as he fled.

  
  


The small community seemed to promise a few days rest , a hot bath, decent feed for his horse and perhaps the attention of a female companion. Instead he found hot lead and no chance to protest or explain.

  
  


'You wouldn't think it was that much to ask' he thought to himself as he flew through the night on his huge black stallion, doubling back, retracing his steps, using rivers and hard pan to cover his tracks and confound his pursuers.

  
  


Tracking was his*game*and no one did it better. Of all his talents he was most prideful of his ability to 'cut for sign'. Ben Bart had been especially thorough in that regard.

  
  


His adoptive uncle, a retired Texas ranger had found him after an Indian raid left him an orphan. He took the child to raise as his own with the help of a Mexican wet-nurse and he named the little spout Johnny. 

  
  


Johnny was a strange child. Not sickly but somewhat frail. And so small. Even at the age of twelve he was the shortest and least able to defend himself of all the boys in town.

But Ben Bart had a feeling about the boy and began to carefully groom his young charge. Teaching him to track, live off the land and be dependent upon no one but himself, he watched the boy grow and thrive. Johnny was quick, and his small stature allowed him to 'get it over' other bigger boys.

Johnny learned fast and used it to his advantage.

And his speed and agility with a gun surpassed all understanding.

Some things can't be taught but that gift was there in his blood. Mere talent became mastery, until finally it was elevated to art. He had a catlike grace and sensitivity. He kept his head down and never spoiled for a fight but once challenged, he gave as well as he got. 

Johnny's entire life revolved around the small ranch, the town and the people he'd grown up with. 

And his plans were made , his life set down in the most satisfactory way. 

  
  


His path lay with the Texas Rangers, like his Uncle and all those brave and worthy men who came before him. 

Names he knew by heart from the tales his Uncle had told him. Names like Alexander Shannon, Benjamin Franklin Terry and the famous Terrys' Rangers.

But Johnny Clay was poised on the brink of another kind of greatness he would have tossed away as quickly as white-hot iron in his hand, had he known. 

  
  


He was 15 when the civil war ended, And a new and different kind of settler began to drift westward.

  
  


Deserters from both sides, were beginning to flee the East. Vagabonds, outcasts and desperate men whose war experiences had given them a taste for violence, a taste for taking what they wanted and a taste for blood. 

Drifting west into Texas where the long arm of the law did not reach, the small railhead of Cuero became a Mecca for outlaws and miscreants. Cuero was a cattle raising settlement, wild and wooly as any of its counterparts. Saloons, cathouses and gambling establishments were the norm.

  
  


But death seemed to follow the boy and the death of his uncle at the hands of two such drifters marked a turning point in his life that would have grave consequences.

  
  


He was never charged with the shooting, even though he had deliberately tracked the two drifters to town.

Had either man known what they were about to face they would have remained quiet and seated. But what they saw caused them to laugh uproariously, as they positioned themselves on either side of him, figuring to get him in a crossfire. A trick that had worked well on the boys' uncle and many more before that.

  
  


Facing them was a skinny little kid who looked to be no older than fourteen.

  
  


If they had any skills other than devious animal cunning, they would have looked closer at the boy. 

  
  


They would have seen the determination in his eyes, heard the deadly calm in his voice and the self-possessed way he faced them, twin colts slung low on his hips, hat low down over his eyes, his back to the doors of the saloon, blocking any retreat.

  
  


Any of the locals in town that day could have told them, but before it could be told, the thing was over and when the smoke had cleared, eighteen year old Johnny Clay had made his first kill. 

  
  


The older man had never even cleared his holster.The younger more cowardly of the two, eased himself behind Johnny and was as surprised as anybody when the youngster,sighting through the mirror, flipped his Colts over his shoulder and brought him down without turning.

  
  


Then without a word, Johnny turned and left the saloon, left the town he was raised in, the ranch that was his only home and his childhood. With everything he'd ever cared about left behind him, he was an orphan again.

  
  


Over the next few years he used his only talent where it was needed, dispensing his own brand of justice. 

And people would tell the stories.The stories grew. And the stories traveled. 

  
  


As his reputation spread it became harder to move comfortably through any society without risking either capture or the challenge from those wishing to *cash in* on his extraordinary abilities. And he was blamed many times for things he'd had no part in. 'Wanted' posters bearing his name and likeness were scattered through Texas and further west his reputation preceded him.

  
  


His hair was the color of the sunset and his stature was small. It made him an easy target.

.

He lived his life from day to day, in the way of the drifter, hoping for good times and leaving the bad times to chance. It suited him well enough to be footloose and he told himself that freedom was worth any price.

  
  


And then one day he looked up and five years had come and gone.

  
  


Five years! 

  
  


A long time to be 'on the dodge'. Johnny was tired, and the way of life he'd cut out for himself was taking it's toll. 

  
  


And the dreams.

  
  


Maybe they were the worst because they would steal upon him at night, shatter his rest and cause his heart to hammer in his chest. The blood and the gore were bad enough, but the shackles and the chains at the end of his days; that's what ate him alive.

Deep in the core of that hard exterior was the seed of something dark and blind. Something he instinctively knew had come there to grow and consume him, gnawing at his insides a little more each day. And in those moments ,when the thing became tangible and he could almost touch it , maybe for the first time in his life, he knew fear.

  
  


Not fear for himself, certainly he had no regard for that. 

  
  


It was fear of the unknown and fear of what he might be capable of at the next turn that kept him moving. And fear that his vengeful acts had become just an excuse to kill.

  
  
  
  


It was sun-up before Johnny felt the posse had given up the chase and perhaps he could rest. He was at the base of the familiar mountain strong hold that had been his original destination. The place he had hoped to reach days earlier. This was the place where his last run had begun and here was where he would make his stand against what he knew was coming. And here was where he'd put paid to what he had found here a month ago. He had hoped for a few days peace before the ruckus started but now here he was , days later than he had intended and shot to pieces to boot. 

With his pursuers behind him, he found himself bent over his saddle physically sick from the pain in his side and the pain in his heart.

  
  


Listening to the breathing of his weary body, keeping time with the panting of the poor exhausted animal under him, he gasped out loud , 

  
  


"Damn, I've had enough of this sh......."

  
  


But the words were left hanging as the air was split with the sound of a tremendous explosion. Apache, his trusted mount jumped straight up into the air, lurching sideways on his way down, and Johnny had all he could do to keep his seat. A wind of tornadic proportions followed and man and horse were engulfed in the gale-force. He bent his head and Apache began backing frantically, flecks of foam flying, coming as close as he ever had to throwing his master in sheer panic.

  
  


And then as suddenly as it had come it was over and it was once again still and deadly quiet.

  
  


Recovering himself he drew one of the two pistols and reached for his rifle , uncertain of what to do next. 

  
  


Unable to tell where the explosion had come from, he wheeled his horse around looking in all directions. 

  
  


Nothing but eerie silence. Even the birds had stopped singing. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up and a slight chill ran up his spine.

  
  


It was then that he heard the unmistakable sound of a woman screaming.

  
  


Screaming in mortal terror. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
